The Bookmaker's daughter
by flying-green-monkey
Summary: Felicity Smoak is in big trouble this time. Caught card counting at a seedy Vegas casino, the fifteen year old is sent to live with her mom and stepfather in central city. But some problems aren't so easy to escape and the new Detective Oliver Queen hasn't seen the last of the young blonde.


The Bookmaker's Daughter

Felicity Smoak is in big trouble this time. Caught card counting at a seedy Vegas casino, the fifteen year old is sent to live with her mum and stepfather in central city. But some problems aren't so easy to escape and the new Detective Oliver Queen hasn't seen the last of the be speckled blonde.

Chapter 1: Ace of Spades

When they called my mother I knew it was over.

The police officer set me up in the interrogation room with a Pepsi can and packet of crisps. The whole station smelt stale. Dirt, piss and forgotten coffee. I'd been in here before. Sitting on bench with the Harrison Well's biography as dad gave his false statement for how he ended up in a back ally with all his fingers broken. The police knew he was lying. Danny Bickwell was pretty clear and consistent when it came to crimes and punishment. Dad didn't go round to his casinos anymore. He wanted to keep all his fingers intact.

Today Dad was with the others; the prostitutes, gamblers, and shady dealers, huddled in a single large cell. He screamed bloody murder when they took me away at the club. All the rest of them were piled up into a van while I was escorted in the back of a police cruiser. The cops thought he was pimping me out the way I was dressed to the nines. Dad's hand had clamped down on my shoulder when the raid began, he hastened to whisper instructions.

'Don't tell a soul, Baby Girl, give them your name but keep quiet about the rest. No matter what they say or threaten, you just got to keep your mouth shut, okay baby girl?' I had nodded vehemently, causing the newly blonde curls to bounce around my face.

Daisy, a dancer at Lian-Yu, had dyed my hair and curled it the night before. Chien Na Wei said it'd make me look older or at least pretty enough that the patrons wouldn't care. Daisy painted my face too so in the dim flashing casino lights I looked a believable eighteen playing to be twenty-one. I caught my relection in the two way mirror. The red lipstick had faded now and the massacre smudged into large racoon eyes. Under the harsh light of the police station the lies failed and I was back to a gawky fifteen year old dwarfed by an officer's jacket.

The dress was uncomfortable and tight. It was a red number made for Vegas with its low cut and slim fit. The push up bra helped a little to hint at breasts. 'Let them look, Baby Girl' Daisy had advised 'Men will believe anything when they see something they want'. Dad want the only one who called me 'Baby Girl' anymore, they all did at Lian-Yu. Everybody but Chien. She liked to grasp my face, tilting it up to look at her own sharp features. I had met her last year after Dad fell out with the Brickwell gang. In all honesty, she scared me. I'd been warned that she had a cruel sense of humour and even her gestures of affection had a dark edge to them.

'You're too smart for your own good, Meimei' Daisy said with a smile it meant 'little sister' while dad gave me a worried look the first time he heard it.

'Be careful, Baby Girl' He warned 'Don't think she won't hurt you'

Chien Na Wei was establishing an empire in Vegas. She was gorgeous in a lethal way with long white unnatural hair matched to a tall slender figure. Lian-Yu was its centre: a complex that included a bar, casino, and a club. The drugs moved freely in the VIP backrooms of her establishments. There were two parts of her business, the legal front intended to be clean whistle and the shady back where the real money was made. It was the latter which had been busted. I'd been perched on a patron's lap as the big rollers gambled their money away. My movements were set, each kiss, giggle, and touch a sign to my partner across the table. The whole set up had been a practice run. The counting itself was easy, even hiding the fact I was doing it, the signals were something else as was the act. I'd never kissed a boy, let alone a man but Chien said it all needed to look natural. Dad hadn't been happy with that. 'She's too young for all that' he protested. Chien barely turned her head to spare him a glance. 'Would you prefer she pay your debts by other means' she purred with her sharp painted fingernail dragging across my cheek. With a flick of the hand she dismissed my father from the room and turned back to me with a predatory smile.

'You're going to have to be grown up about this, Meimei' She talked as if I was much younger and that somehow made the situation seem more sinster. 'Go and sit on his lap' She gestured to bored looking bodyguard in his mid-thirties. My arms automatically circled my stomach as I walked towards him and then were pushed off with a blunt slap. 'Confidence' Chien hissed.

My mind was over analysing the situation and my own movements. I suddenly felt incapable of movement. A sick terror settling in my stomach as I awkwardly climbed onto the stranger's lap. It looked and felt wrong. Daisy whispered in Chein's ear and the woman nodded to whatever had been said.

I liked Daisy who came across bubbly, fun, and undeniably sexy. She reminded me of my mother but more attentive and softer with her gestures and words.

'Here Baby Girl, take this' Daisy walked up to me and held out a small white pill. I looked up surprised but she gave a reassuring smile.

'It'll help you relax, make things easier' and that's all I really wanted, not to feel so stuck in my gawky body. I wanted to help my dad cause I knew we were going to loose that shitty trailer I called home if I didn't. Maybe I'd loose Dad too and that thought made me nauseous. He wasn't great at looking after me, but neither had ma and at least he tried. In the old house, when Ma was still here, he had a room with all his computer parts. I could build my own abeit simple, since I was seven, but still enjoyed listening as he talked me though his processes piecing together one of his many creations. 'Theres no mystery in computers' He'd say 'Everything has an explanation if you look for it'

I popped the pill into my mouth and waited for its affects to take hold of me. Daisy was right, it did make me feel better. My limbs loosened, feeling light and good. When I started to giggled Daisy led me to the man whose interest had peaked. He settled his hands on my waist and pulled me up. As I wiggled a bit to get comfortable he laughed in a great booming manner and a lump in his pants became obvious. My head lolled against his shoulder where as I was instructed I kissed his neck, the light stubble scratching my skin.

'She'll need to learn how to do it without being drugged' Chien commented. Daisy shrugged her shoulders looking at me with both sympathy and curiosity. 'She's a virgin, Miss Wei, hasn't even kissed a boy. But you've got hold of her young. That inexperience will be useful.'

The other women laughed 'What do you think I've been doing Daisy? She is far more valuable than her father and people will underestimate her. Fix her up as a blonde in a pretty dress and no one will look twice. That a valuable commodity for a girl that smart'

Listening to them tired me and my sight began to blur. I stopped trying and collapsed against the man's chest only vaguely aware when he lifted me up and took me to another room.

I stared harder at the reflection in the two way mirror. It hardly seemed to be me or the person I use to know. Since becoming wrapped up in Lian-Yu my school attendance had slipped, I hadn't been in over a month. At first it felt glamourous and grown up but now I just looked sad, slumping under the pitying gazes of the police officers who herded us into groups after the raid. At first they had been harsh. Everyone had been lined up at the club, their ids pulled out. Mine was good but not good enough for a well trained eye to pass. If I opened my mouth I knew everything would pour out. Whatever they thought I was, the outcome wouldn't be nearly as bad if I spilled my guts. But stoicism was hard so I did the second best thing.

I cried.

No, I sobbed.

'Christ, she's just a little girl' An officer muttered, peering at me with a flashlight as a blubbered. I could see Chein in the distance grinning at me as I twisted my way out of interrogation with tears and a snotty nose. My amped up dramatics were all for her benefit.

'Whats your name kid?' I glanced over the officer's shoulder and received a slight nod. Dad was going to get thrown under the bus but it was nothing he couldn't handle and far better than ending up dead.

'Fel-… Felicity Sm-Smoak'

'And how old are you, sweetie?'

'Fifteen'

'Good girl, now can you tell me what your doing here?'

I burst into tears again. Making them extra loud with a bit of trembling to play the part well. What was I doing here? Paying off my father's debts the only way I knew how. Counting cards was easy, just numbers and probabilities. Chien said I was one of the best she'd seen when dad showed her last year. I'd been doing it for as long as I could remember, before dad even dealt me in during his Saturday night games. It had never been gambling to me, never a game dictated by Lady Luck, it was always just a math problem that was too fun not to solve.

A door opened and I blinked out of my thoughts and back into the downtown Vegas Police station. A detective walked in. He seemed younger than the other officers with blonde hair and a pretty boy face. He smiled at me and took a seat. I kept a surly expression, watching him carefully.

'I called your stepfather' He waited for a response I didn't give.

'Came as a bit of a surprise, I use to date your stepsister Laurel back in high school' I raised an eyebrow. I barely knew the Lance family. Ma had wanted me to come to Starling and live with her new and perfect family. The trial, as I called it, lasted a month before I packed my bags and left a note stating I had decided to live with dad. They were nice enough, Quinten, Sara, and Laurel. It was ma I couldn't stand. The perfect little nuclear family struck a false note, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

'We met once. Quinten and Donna's wedding. You were what? Eleven? Twelve? Im just trying to understand how the wide eyed girl with glasses who couldn't keep her nose out of a science textbook ended up in a seedy casino with a fake ID.'

I squinted at him again, examining his features more carefully.

'Oliver Queen' I said finally, placing the face to a name. We had met but never spoken. He had been an attachment to Laurel's arm as she drank away the shame of her father marrying a Vegas cocktail waitress.

'That Casino and bar, Lian-Yu, is tied to some pretty shady people, Felicity. People like Chien Na Wei aren't your friends. The others think you've been caught up in the underage prostitution ring, that your dad has been pimping you out. But Wei has been using considerable efforts to get you out, more than she would for any of her other girls'

I kept my mouth clamped shut. The usual babble tick rising as fidgeting instead. During the last year I'd taken to anxiously pulling at my hair, finding a single stand and pulling it with a satisfying pop.

'So I looked you up. National mathlete, chess champion, and a forerunner in google young inventor's scholarship. Your smart, ridiculously so and Wei knows that. They have you card counting don't they?' among other things. My hacking skills were good but clumsy and unrefined. I told her that straight up. Dad had spilled the beans on that particular talent after I got caught hacking into the school records to wipe away my absences. The act would have been flawless and untraceable if Brie Larvan hadn't tattled on me. When they called Dad down to the school he had been strangely proud, almost impressed with my crime much to the principle's displeasure.

'That's a slippery slope Felicity. Im guessing your Dad's in debt. You guys have been evicted four times in the past three years.' Dad had never been straight edged even when he could have been. He was the smartest man I knew, just not in the everyday life sort of things.

'He's a dreamer' Ma would say, at first with affection and then later with resentment. It hadn't been bad then, there were still debts but not the sort that earnt you broken knee caps, that came later. Dad had spiralled since Ma left. That felt like a euphemism. She left. As if someone left to go to college or left to go grocery shopping. Donna Smoak had cheated. She had cheated for a whole year before she packed her bags and _left_ for Starling City, filing for divorce via email.

'It just sort of happened' Donna cried to my silence over the phone. 'Quinten and I fell in love, you cant help these things.' I had hung up then. Ma liked to deny it, say she was coming back for me, that me moving to Starling was all part of the plan, but it was to save face. She abandoned her daughter right alongside her husband. I came for the wedding. Dad had tried to insist I live her. The Lance family was well off and stable. We agreed that I'd try it out in the month after the wedding. Ma just assumed it would be permanent.

'And now he's one of Wei's Bookmakers, organizing bets for illegal fighting rings right? I'm not trying to get answers out of you Felicity. I wouldn't want to put you in that danger, your blood's not going to be on my hands. But I've been working here for three years now, since I started as a patrol officer, and I know a little about how this Vegas life works so im going to give you some advice. Go with your stepdad. He's a bit of a hardass but he cares if you let him. Go back to school. Go to University then get a 9 to 5 job in some office far away from here. You have an easy out Felicity, a start over, that's more than a lot of people get in this life. Don't waste it.'

Detective Queen hesitated after standing up, then he reached over and squeezed my shoulder.

'All the best Felicity Smoak'

It was another five years before I saw him again.


End file.
